Observation 34: This is wrong.

Observation 33: If you’ve got a problem with my gun, then I’ve got a problem with you.

Okay, maybe not.

Observation 32: It’s easier to get through the day when I don’t think about the number of people that I work with who neglect to wash their hands after visiting the restroom.

Of course, it doesn’t help when they’re totally blatant about it.

C’mon now, people. Have you no shame?

Observation 31: Reading Lynda Barry makes me feel slightly more okay about my own personal level of neurosis.

Observation 30: My blogging productivity is inversely proportionate to the niceness of the weather.

The same formula is true of my work productivity in relationship to how close I am to the agency ping pong table.

Whatever.

See y’all during the next rain storm!

Observation 29: The search term “Fairuza Balk” drives a surpising amount of traffic to this blog, despite the fact that it’s 2009.

That said,

Fairuza Balk, Fairuza Balk, Fairuza Balk.

Shameless, I know.

Observation 28: I feel no need to justify my belief that Conor Oberst is an asshole.

And yet, the Internet provides me with glorious, shining proof anyway.

Observation 27: This is the best use for a bunch of garbage that I have ever seen.

Screw you and your trendy revisionist lo-fi. Thermos and Bob Log III got it right back in ‘96, with a pile of trash and thrift-store junk.

Doo Rag performing ‘Trudge’ and ‘Kick Walken’ from the sinfully difficult-to-find album, What We Do, live on the French television program, Nulle Part Ailleurs:

In case you were wondering about their equipment [from Wikipedia]:

Guitarist and singer Bob Log III played an accoustic/electric slide homemade dobro, which sounded akin to an electrocuted McDowell on amphetamines, mixed with AC/DC. He also played a $2 thrift store guitar in a similar slide fashion which often left the sound men at the clubs they were playing at in awe at it’s wicked growl during the duo’s sound check. Doo Rag also employed a number of Thermos Malling’s unique microphone setups to distort the vocals, and was as likely to be singing through a vacuum cleaner hose as to be singing into two hairdryers with built-in microphones. Thermos Malling contributed percussion using a custom-made drumkit compiled from a Budweiser box for a bass drum, a tin bucket as a snare drum, an old film reel as a cymbal, an iron shopping basket used as a hi-hat, and a number of other found objects.

Observation 26: New Yorkers are nutjobs. And I am becoming one of them.

It rained this morning in New York. And anyone who has ever spent enough time in the city knows that rain means it will be an absolute nightmare to get anywhere via taxi. Because everyone wants one and the drivers absolutely know it and use it to their benefit.

As I tried to hail a cab for 15 minutes, I watched a woman with a stroller step onto the corner in front of me. A Cardinal sin. Thou shalt not steal cab service. Ever. New Yorkers will stab you for this. In the rain? They’ll make sure the knife’s good and rusty.

And of course, a cab pulled up within a minute to gracefully swoop this woman away. I began stammering incoherently and stomping my foot, when the incomprehensible happened.

This woman offered to split the cab with me.

As she made the offer, however, the cab driver resisted.

“No. I can’t make two stops. Cannot do it.”

The woman persisted: “You can’t?”

“No. I cannot.”

And then it began.

The kind, mirage of a woman I thought I’d met in the wasteland of a rainy New York day quickly dissipated to reveal a woman just as nuts as everyone else.

Just as quickly as she offered me her kind help, she turned.

“Well, then sir, I hope you burn in hell. That’s just wrong. I want your license number. I’m reporting you, you asshole! I’ll get you fired! It’s just wrong! I have a baby! It’s raining, you bastard! Bastard! Asshole! ASSHOLE!”

And I stood and watched the cab that she stole from me, then unstole from me, begin to drive away. As she kicked it with her boot.

This, however, is not where the story ends.

Because I was still standing in the rain. And now I was standing in the rain, with my new friend.

And another cab pulled up.

My dilemma: Let her take the cab and continue to try, fruitlessly, to hail one for another hour. Or get in with a woman I just watched verbally and physically assault a moving vehicle.

I was running late.

I decided if she was going to kill anyone today, it probably wasn’t me.

We had a lovely chat about her son’s Star Wars figurine as we both went to work.

Observation 25: Drunk bloggin’ is probs way stupid.

But drunk bloggers don’t give an eff.

Ya hear?